LinkedIn Executing Steadily

According to a recent report, Talent Acquisition Factbook 2011: Benchmarks and Trends of Spending, Staffing and Key Talent Metrics, worldwide spending on recruiting software, services, staff, content, and consulting is estimated to be over $130 billion.  The improving U.S. job market will also help spur growth in recruiting. Recently listed LinkedIn is working hard to be the leader in this market.

LinkedIn’s Financials
LinkedIn (NYSE:LNKD) Q4 revenues grew 105% over the year to $167.7 million, ahead of the market’s expectations of $159.7 million. Adjusted EPS of $0.12 was also ahead of the Street’s target of $0.07 for the quarter. The company ended the quarter with 145 million subscribers and added 14 million resumes to their database during the quarter.

Revenues from LinkedIn’s recruiting tools grew 136% over the year to $84.9 million, marketing solution revenues grew 77% to $49.5 million, and premium subscriptions revenues were up 87% over the year to $33.3 million. By region, revenues from the U.S. amounted to 67% of total revenues.

According to comScore, the site saw 41% growth in average unique visitors to 92 million. In December 2011, LinkedIn was the 36th most visited site worldwide, with page views increasing 39% over the year to 7.6 billion.

LinkedIn expects revenues of $170 million-$175 million for the current year, compared with analyst estimates of $171 million. They aim to end the current year with revenues of $840 million-$860 million, ahead of the Street’s target of  $828 million.

New Sites in Western and Central Europe
LinkedIn has been focused on expansion into international markets. Last quarter, international revenues amounted to 33% of their revenues of $55.8 million. A year ago, international revenues accounted for 29% of the quarter’s revenues and brought in $24 million. Last year, they added eight languages to their offerings and thus far in 2012, they have already added Czech and Dutch portals. LinkedIn is now available in 16 languages.

Aggressive Acquisitions in Social Media
Similar to other recently listed tech stocks, LinkedIn is acquiring aggressively. Earlier last week, they announced plans to acquire technology startup Rapportive. Rapportive is known for their browser plug-in that works with Gmail to display social networking details such as Twitter tweets and whether the user is connected through Facebook and LinkedIn to the correspondent.

Last quarter, they acquired hosted search startup IndexTank for an undisclosed sum. The hosted search engine offered by IndexTank is a real-time service that lets developers build search based applications using IndexTank’s search engine. LinkedIn plans to use IndexTank’s real-time feed indexing and search capabilities to enhance their own search capabilities.

The acquisitions tie in to their product strategy, which is focused on simplifying their offerings by creating “more relevant, more social experiences.” For now, the market is reacting positively. Their stock rose 20% following the announcement of their results and is trading at $85.10 with a market capitalization of $8.21 billion. It touched a high of $122.70 in May 2011, soon after it listed.